Non invasive fetal ECG monitoring

A new fetal electronic monitoring system (FEMO) is developed at Tel-Aviv University and implemented by Medco Ltd. It is used to detect fetal heart rate from a maternal abdominal, noninvasive ECG (AECG) signal, and to calculate an average fetal ECG complex. A comparison test with the “gold standard” direct, scalp fetal ECG data, obtained invasively during labor, was performed in eleven patients. The abdominal fetal heart rate and ECG complex were compared with direct heart rate and scalp ECG. R wave defection accuracy was 96%, and correlation with direct heart rate was 0.74 to 0.98 (average 0.90). The average abdominal ECG complex is similar to the ECG complex from scalp electrodes and displays P wave, QRS complex and T wave. A second group of twenty four normal pregnancies, 20-42 gestational weeks, were divided into four groups by pregnancy age and studied by AECG. Fetal heart rate and average ECG complex were computed from the AECG data and intrabeat features of the average ECG waves were measured to determine differences between the various age groups